Diamanto Mamuneas

Diamanto Mamuneas (PhD Student)

e-mail: dmamuneas [at] rvc.ac.uk

Research Overview

Animals form congregations because they benefit from this as individuals; for example due to reduced predation risk or local resource enhancement. However, group living and movement also poses a problem: given that individuals benefit most from being with others, how do they successfully stay within the group? And when are they best able to employ optimal strategies to obtain resources or avoid costs as a coordinated unit? Simple rules may have evolved to govern individual behaviour for maintaining coherence and emergent order in situations where there may otherwise be conflicts of interest. I am interested in what these rules are and how they lead to the kind of complex behaviours people are familiar with such as fish shoaling or synchronised surfacing – as well as human equivalents and more complex cooperation in both these and other taxa. I am currently using three-spined sticklebacks in lab-based experiments and considering whether personality traits influence leadership/followership, what other factors correlate with these traits and what combinations of traits would produce the best outcome for a group, from the perspective of individual costs and benefits.

Education

2011-Present: BBSRC funded PhD student

Structure and Motion Laboratory, Royal Veterinary College, University of London (Supervisors Andrew King and Andrew Spence), and Evolutionary Ecology Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge (co-supervisor Andrea Manica).

2010-2011:MSc in Cognitive & Evolutionary Anthropology

The Institute of Cognitive & Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford.